Is Airbnb Profitable in Sheridan, Wyoming?

What the data actually shows

Sheridan's short-term rental market, as measured by AirDNA across the twelve months ending August 5, 2026:

• 214 active listings — down 12.3% year-over-year
• Average daily rate: $195 — down 15.2% year-over-year
• Occupancy: 54% — up 2.7% year-over-year
• Average annual revenue: $18,700 per listing — up 12.8% year-over-year
• RevPAR: $106 — down 12.1% year-over-year
• Market Score: 56/100 (Demand 81, Seasonality 55, Revenue Growth 66, Investability 68, Regulation 56)

Source: AirDNA — Sheridan, Wyoming STR market data, as of August 5, 2026.

Read those together and a specific pattern emerges: rate is falling, occupancy is rising, and revenue per listing is rising faster than either number alone would predict. That's not a market getting easier — it's a market where price competition among a shrinking pool of listings is being won by whichever properties keep their calendars fuller, not by whichever properties charge the most per night.

Why revenue rose while rates fell

Three forces are visible in the numbers. First, the listing pool contracted 12.3% — weaker operators are exiting, which concentrates demand onto the properties that remain. Second, occupancy climbed even as rates dropped, which is the classic signature of hosts competing on availability and booking friction rather than sticker price. Third, RevPAR (revenue per available night, blending rate and occupancy into one number) still fell 12.1% — meaning the revenue gains are not showing up equally across the market. Some properties are pulling ahead; others are being left behind by the same trend.

That divergence is the honest answer to "is it profitable": profitability in Sheridan right now is a management-quality question, not a market-timing question. A well-run, well-priced, well-maintained property is capturing real revenue growth in a market that looks flat or declining on the surface-level numbers.

What this means for a new or prospective owner

If you're evaluating whether to buy or convert a Sheridan property into a short-term rental, the data above supports three practical conclusions:

1. Don't rely on the headline ADR to model revenue. A falling average rate says nothing about what a well-positioned, professionally priced listing can command — occupancy is doing more of the work than rate right now.
2. Underperforming listings are exiting, not multiplying. A shrinking listing count in a market with rising occupancy is a market correcting toward its stronger operators, not a market in decline for everyone in it.
3. Regulatory and investability scores (56 and 68 out of 100, respectively) are moderate, not hostile. Wyoming's licensing and tax framework is knowable and stable — it's a compliance cost, not an open question.

The licensing and compliance side of the profitability question

A number that AirDNA doesn't and can't measure: what happens to net profitability when a rental is managed by an unlicensed operator versus a state-regulated brokerage. Wyoming law requires anyone managing property for compensation on another owner's behalf to hold a real estate broker's license and route funds through a dedicated, regulated trust account.

That framework doesn't show up in a market-data platform, but it shows up in an owner's risk exposure and, over time, in net revenue — a mismanaged trust relationship or an uninsured claim can erase a full year of the gains described above in a single incident.

How we approach this

We manage short-term, long-term, and commercial properties across Sheridan County as a licensed Wyoming brokerage, which means every dollar this market's revenue growth represents moves through a regulated trust account, not a personal account. We price against live local comps weekly rather than a static rate, which is the specific practice this data says is winning right now.